After the Storm
by Ruadh
Summary: A short monologue by Tom Locke how has everyone coped with the aftermath of the Game? More to the point how does he really feel about Jenny's attachment to Julian. It's my first fic so please be gentle constructive R/R only please.


Title: After the Storm Author: Blue Email: scriber_scot@hotmail.com Rating: PG Warnings: Tom Locke monologue, mild references to sex, and moderately bad language- nothing that would upset your grandma though! Spoilers: Forbidden Game  
  
Disclaimers: The concepts and characters of "Forbidden Game" belong to L.J. Smith.  
  
Summary: This is a monologue by Tom Locke- how does he really feel about Jenny's attachment to Julian, and how has everyone coped after the Game?  
  
  
  
She sleeps so peacefully just now, her hair covering her face those bastards aren't working their mojo to give her nightmares tonight. Jenny is stronger than anyone ever guessed, least of all me, even Dee hasn't coped with the aftermath of the Game as well as you would have expected. Julian changed us all, him with his torments and manipulation ripped us all apart and rebuilt us as though we were Meccano sets. Dee is a perfect example where once she would have slept with a baseball bat under her bed to combat nightmares now you're just as likely to see her reading Freud and Jung to dissect what her nightmares mean. She really is determined to follow Jenny to college, who would have thought two years ago that Nefertiti and reading would be in the same sentence, unless it was a Bruce Lee biography.  
  
As for me, I'm probably the only nineteen year old who is just as scared of nightmares and the shapes in the dark as a six year old would be. It's just as well I have my own room in the dorm, I can just imagine the guys ragging on me if they found out the big,bad Tom Locke "Athlete of the Year" has to sleep with a night-light. The nightmares are the worst a constant reminder that they exist, Shadow Men. They leave a sour taste in my mouth and make it difficult to breathe have they come back? Will they take Jenny? Yes it's all down to Julian: who claimed his big noble sacrifice meant we were free of THEM, the Shadow Men. I watched Thorny how her eyes changed from a new mint green to a dark cypress colour as though she was lost too, as he faded to nothing in her arms.  
  
Julian with his frost white hair and too blue eyes had set her free giving up his un-life in the process. He had stalked Jenny since she was 5, wanting her light to his darkness. Hell he almost had me convinced that he was sincere, he played her right up until the end like a cat with a mouse. Now she remembers him as a noble soul, she's almost forgotten the horror of his paper house and the ceaseless stalking of all of us: and so Julian has won. She wears my ring on her left hand but its his ring she wears on her grandma's antique chain next to her heart. "I am my only master" nice sentiment but not something he would have followed through with if he'd had the chance. She still thinks of him, memories we created together are pushed out to make room for him it hurts that a part of her will always belong to Julian now.  
  
I spoke to Dee about it, after all she's known us both all her life, if anyone could tell me whether Jen's feelings had changed it would be her. She just looked at me sadly over her psychology textbook looking more like Aba than her old wild self, and she said (and I quote) "dude it's been two years you've got to let go already. It's you Jenny's with so relax." Intellectually I know that Jenny loves me just like I love her, but it's hard to compete with Julian he was just too damn exotic. I know that I'm not bad looking I get offers often enough, but it's not as if I'm competing with some bozo at the mall, I'm competing with his memory it's almost as bad as if he were still alive.  
  
I know Jenny hasn't told me everything that went on in the game but I can guess some of it. Julian was evil, but he brought us all together he fused us into this unit, hell Audrey might have found her surfer boy and dumped Mike if it weren't for him. I wish I could say that the Game was positive for the rest of us Jenny came back from church today after lighting a candle for Summer.  
  
Poor sweet ditzy little Summer, when Julian said one of us wouldn't make it he was right she didn't have the strength to face the horror so she downed her Mom's Valium and never woke up. I've tried to blame him for it but it was Zach that convinced me to think differently, he knew Summer better than any of us after they dated for Senior year. Zach said Summer was too delicate for this world, and that even if we hadn't been kidnapped and tortured by a psycho loony Prince of Darkness she might not have made it anyway.  
  
What happened to Summer gave me new strength to fight all my lingering doubts. Thorny is coping, she says Julian was Dagaz the catalyst, she must be right she skips about campus with a light in her eyes that only people who have seen real darkness can comprehend I huddle around her light like it was the last candle on earth. Jenny sleeps over here most nights neither of us can bear to be alone at night, its still too raw. We have developed a more fun way to keep the darkness at bay- and when she writhes underneath me and sobs my name like its the oxygen she needs to breathe I feel complete. I don't even notice her textbooks anymore that lie about my dorm room like wounded birds, she's taking computer science with a minor in Norse mythology, even the ones with illustrations of striking princes who they tell will be resurrected come Ragnarok.  
  
I wake up every morning now to greet a too blue dawn with a smile and to flip it and the wraith its colour reminds me of the finger. You see Jenny is pregnant with our son, Jareth Zachary Michael Locke who seals our love better than any shadow ring. Not even Julian can come between us as long as we are a family. 


End file.
